Podcast 329: Cleveland’s Best Watson
2026-08-25Peyton Watson became a Cavalier last week, effectively turning a humdrum off-season into a qualified success. That this came before DeShaun Watson was named the Brown’s starting QB this week, made things all the better for the premiere sports team in the 216. Peyton is a young, talented soon-to-be-24-year-old, who popped in his fourth year with Denver to force an unfortunate financial decision for the Nuggets. Wary of big penalties in the second Apron, Denver moved Watson to get themselves out of luxury tax hell, while the Cavs took advantage of James Harden’s (more than appropriately compensated) good will to arrange a trade for Max Strus and a ninth grader (the likely current age of the draft pick they traded away).
To celebrate, Eli, Nate, and Chris piled into the newly refurbished podcast studio and broke it all down: the upside, the risk, and the ridiculous new contract for the beard. The guys broke down the LeBron decision mark four, then went through the contenders in the surprisingly deep eastern conference. Then they went over private equity slush fund that has become the NBA, nominated Adam Silver for prison, and made some pitches for restaurants and coming Cleveland nightlife.
As always,
Guards got Angels in Game #1 – no juice tonight though. Williams seems a little off.
They rollin now, though!
“President Stevens will be exposed. Shoutout to EG!”
Quote of the pod.
Gorgeous Georges to the Dubs.
OUCH THAT IS “ BITTER SWEET “ CLF —BUT IF NEEDED I GUESS CPJ IS ODD MAN OUT
The other option is dumping CPJ or Tomlin.
CPJ fan, but easily should be him so Proctor and Thomas get real run.
You’d keep Whitmore over CPJ?
Guys, we are not keeping Whitmore, nor should we.
Trade or waive and stretch.
HEZONJA —- BY MID SEASON I WILL HAVE IT DOi👍🤪. “ HEJ “ FOR SHORT 👍👍
YES ( as I posted recently) THE CAVS GOT THE GOOD WATSON 👍👍👍——HESONGA IS GOING TO BE AN INTERESTING PROSPECT——WHEN WILL CAVS MAKE A DECISION ON WHITMORE—— WILL THEY PURSUE BROWN / BROWEN
Hezonja. I think I am spelling that right.
As reported, we cannot even sign Harden officially as we do not have the space under the 1st apron.
Whitmore has to go, or Harden’s deal has to be for a small bit less.
The math I see says if we waive & stretch Whitmore, we have enough to sign a player, but not the $2.449 or whatever the cap hit is for vet min with 2+ years. A couple hundred k short. Can’t sign Brown or Love or Kuminga or even Agbaji.
So either Harden has to take less, or Altman has to try and offload Whitmore for: no salary back, a player we can waive without a cap hit, or one who creates enough space to sign a vet for the last spot (rookie undrafted/2nd round pick).
The cost of stretching Whitmore is like $1.8 mil on this year’s cap. So we’d need someone cheaper than that back.
Slim pickins, I’d think. Someone has to like his upside (doubtful) or we will have to attach something (we don’t have much).